Page 83

Her cousin stood there with her husband, expression apprehensive.

“What?” Martha asked, coming out of the line of dancers at once. “What is it?”

Eliza looked at her husband, clearly pleading for him to speak.

Mr. Cummings looked at Martha with sympathy. “An express came just now, Martha. From your mother. She insists that you take the next stagecoach to London. Apparently, there is some son of a viscount that has just returned, and she wishes for you to try for him. She writes in … rather determined terms.”

“Yes, she usually does,” Martha grumbled, something cold sinking into her core. “No doubt my lack of correspondence has worn away at her patience.”

“She does suggest that if you had kept her more apprised of your situation here, she might have given you more notice,” Mr. Cummings relayed. “She believes this sudden news will inconvenience you, but will, in the end, lessen the suffering you have endured here.”

Martha snorted softly in derision. “I’ve had a more pleasant time here than I’ve had in the last five years combined, and she won’t wish to hear that.” She looked over at the dancing couples, seeing Benj make his way towards them with concern. “And if I refuse her? If I decide to stay in Wiltshire for the time originally allotted me? She thinks I’m miserable. What if I explain that I am not?”

“She will come out and fetch you herself,” Mr. Cummings replied sadly. “If you are not in London by the week’s end, she will come.”

That stopped Martha cold. It was nothing for Martha to spite her mother and feel the wrath of it, but if her mother came to fetch her, showed herself at Lanfare, it would be mortifying for Eliza. There was no mistaking the disdain that Martha’s mother felt for her niece, and the barbs would certainly be thrown about. Eliza was too good a creature to retaliate, and Mr. Cummings too congenial to rage in defense. The children would hear all that was being said, and would doubt their family’s worth and standing within the extended relations.

She could not subject her cousins to the shame her mother would shower down upon them.

“I must go, then,” Martha whispered as her limbs began to slowly tingle into a frozen numbness. “When is the next stagecoach?”

“Tomorrow,” Eliza whispered, near to tears.

Martha nodded absently, wetting her suddenly parched lips. “Such a lovely stretch of time here gone, and no more to be had.” She swallowed hard, taking her cousin’s hand and turning to the approaching Benj. “What do I tell him?”

“The truth, I expect,” Mr. Cummings advised. “Then enjoy the rest of the night to its fullest. ’Twill be a fine memory.”

She could only nod again, already pained by the thought. A memory only. Not a reality.

Something within her cracked, and the sound of it seemed to echo in her ears.